


Remains

by shuns



Series: shuns Death by Quill Entries [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood and Gore, DBQ 2019 Round 3, Family Drama, Gen, Ink Magic, Magical Tattoos, Or a typical Saturday night with the Black sisters, Possession, Trying for Rebecca but ended up more like Carrie, Under the Influence of Horcruxes, torture and abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 03:16:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuns/pseuds/shuns
Summary: Ink bleeds. Ink stains. InkRemains.Unless you have a virgin lying around that you are willing to sacrifice.





	Remains

**Author's Note:**

> To the Best of Betas, you are a magical creature capable of vanishing useless words and summoning semicolons. To my Alpha who enjoys discussing character agency, the Bronte sisters, and gothic romance novels as much as I do. 
> 
>  
> 
> Me: (Bouncing up and down) I'm so excited about the prompt for this round - Ink Magic! And I got my preferred pairing Hermione/Bellatrix. (Fist pump) I think I'll write about the other Black sisters too. It could be like _Steel Magnolias_ but with MAGIC!  
> My Muse: (Cackles darkly) No.
> 
> Trigger Warning: This story contains depictions of abuse and torture with the resulting blood and gore.

With a click, the door swung open.

“Narcissa, this is a bad idea.” Bella knew more hexes, jinxes, and curses than anybody, and Andromeda didn’t poke dragons.

Narcissa stood and brushed off her robes. “You want to know about that book she’s always writing in. And the door just _happened_ to be unlocked,” she finished innocently.

Andromeda sighed. Father would tell her off for corrupting her baby sister, not that she needed any help. Narcissa would be a third year in the fall and her fourth. The first year without Bella, now she had graduated. _Thank the gods._

They crept into Bella’s darkened room; Andromeda tested for traps while Narcissa looked for the book. She couldn't let her baby sister get hurt. In Andromeda's experience, even Bella's ‘jokes’ hurt. 

She felt an overwhelming sense of doom, and her doubts were clamoring in her head. She was ready to call off the search when Narcissa let out a cry of triumph. It was disillusioned and stuck behind the bed's headboard. She ended the charm and pulled out the smallish black leather book. 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' was written in gold on the front. Fear stabbed her stomach, but she opened the book to find - blank pages.

“I think she charmed it.”

"Well, of course, Narcissa. _Revelio."_ It revealed nothing. " _Videtur."_ Nothing appeared.

“This is boring, Meda. Why don’t we write something nasty in it? Or, we could draw a dirty picture. Like a boy’s cock.”

“Narcissa Black, I will _tergeo_ your mouth. Where did you learn that word?”

Narcissa wrinkled her nose, “Darius Flint was filthy, but I vanished his vocal cords. Because I am a _lady_ and I get the last word, well even if it isn't a word.”

 _Last word_. “Oh, you are brilliant Cissa.” She ran to the writing desk, dipped the quill in the inkwell, then let a blot drip on the page. With a whispered _Extremum Verbum,_ the ink stain transformed into the last words written - **Hello Tom**.

Then the door crashed into the wall, bursting into flame. “What are you doing?” Bella’s wild hair crackled, and her face was a raging storm. “I told you not to touch my things. Shall remove your nasty fingers as a reminder?” Bella stalked into the room but let out a cry when she saw the diary on the desk.

Andromeda stepped in front of Narcissa wand drawn. “Bella, we’re sorry, it’s my fault. I didn’t mean-”

Bella held up a hand, “You took and touched. You weren’t even Slytherin about it. I caught you red-handed.” A sick grin wrapped around her lips, and she whispered, “ _Evanescunt Manus_.”

Andromeda screamed as her wand hit the floor with a clunk. Blood dripped from the stumps where her hands had been. Bellatrix cackled as Narcissa rushed her from the room to the kitchen. In the last year, Bella’s ‘jokes’ as Father called them had grown increasingly painful. All of Andromeda’s pocket money went to buying Skele-gro and pain potions. Narcissa had become very good at triage healing.

It took four days to regrow Andromeda's hands and the rest of her holidays to relearn how to use them. The curse scars on her wrists didn't fade and were impervious to glamours, so she started wearing long sleeves. 

Both sisters avoided Bella until the start of school, not that it was difficult. Bella was either _out_ with Father or in her room, writing in her diary. When they did see her at meals, she was agitated and rubbing her neck and arm as though something bothered her.

September 1st couldn’t come soon enough.

* * *

Hermione wanted to throw the book, but one cannot only launch a two thousand page treatise on dark enchantments - without a small catapult. She rubbed the scar on her arm through her jumper. The pain from her torture at Malfoy Manor had never gone away. To sleep, she needed a pain potion, dreamless sleep, and a bottle of wine; otherwise, she woke with a throat raw from screaming and gouges she had clawed on her arm. So she drank another pepper-up potion and worked instead. 

After the Battle, the boys had been swept up in the excitement of the Auror program. She’d gravitated toward the quiet Department of Mysteries. Though she had almost run screaming from it on her first day - when they pulled Bellatrix Lestrange’s body out of the makeshift morgue.

Even in death, her face was twisted into a sneer, her eyes open and black. It was unnerving; Hermione wished they had just burned her.

The first day and the first time Hermione touched the body, an unseen glamour around Bellatrix’s neck collapsed, revealing a chain of tattooed runes. They were black, ugly, and foul. The way they undulated made her stomach roil. All of the tattoos on Bellatrix’s body were still moving. Without a witch or wizard's magical core to sustain glamours or magical tattoos, they gave out. Her tattoos shouldn’t be moving, but they were. They were drawing magic from somewhere, but where?

She had been examining the body for months now. There was no evidence of Horcruxes or other Dark Arts, but she couldn’t let this go. Something just felt wrong. She picked up one of the forty-six requests Narcissa Malfoy had made for the body to be released.

Perhaps it was time to involve the family.

* * *

Narcissa crushed the parchment and incinerated it with a snap.

“Who is it this time?” Andromeda’s questions were impertinent, one of many bad habits she’d picked up from her mud...gle-born husband. Being under house arrest with only her estranged, blood-traitor sister for company was not comfortable, for either party. They did their best to twist each other’s wands into knots.

“The Greengrasses would be delighted to betroth Astoria to Draco. She’s curse-born so they would be delighted to betroth her to a rampaging hippogriff. This time last year they would have offered Daphne and an armada of galleons.”

Andromeda raised a brow. “Wedding planning will be hard with Draco in Azkaban.”

Narcissa sniffed, “I will have my family back. First, I will get Bella _back_. Then, I will get Draco _back_ and married. Finally, I will get Lucius _back_. We will go to France and never come _back_ to this cursed country.”

“You may get at least one of your wishes. I received this,” Andromeda held up a small scroll, “from the Ministry this morning. We’ve been invited to view her remains.”

Narcissa felt vindicated, even a small victory over the Ministry was sweet. 

* * *

Andromeda let out a small gasp when Hermione pulled the sheet back covering Bellatrix’s body. “That can’t be her.”

Narcissa's knew her disgust was transparent, but Bella should not be on a slab. “I assure you, that’s our sister. Neither the Dark Lord or Azkaban was kind.”

Hermione stepped forward. “Lady Lestrange had tattoos on her person. The tree and the birds on her back, the geometric patterns on her thighs and abdomen, and a circle of runes around her neck. I was hoping you could shed some insight -”

“No,” snapped Narcissa. “We aren’t here for questions. We came to collect her.”

“May I ask why you won’t answer my questions?”

Narcissa glared, and with a resigned sigh, Andromeda answered for her, “Family magic.”

Hermione bristled. Since the war, the purebloods had replaced 'pureblood' with 'family magic.' But it was the 'family' part that vexed her. Her parents no longer knew her. She was an orphan, a war orphan. She glowered at the two witches. They had an ancient and noble house and their family secrets. Well, she had bureaucracy -forms in triplicate - and something they wanted.

“To petition for the release of remains, you must fill out this scroll.” Hermione summoned the parchment, and with a flick of her wand, all twenty-four feet unrolled. “Given Bellatrix’s role in the War, the Ministry wants to be very thorough in its review. Once you complete the entire form, _front and back_ , it must be notarized by the Department of Records. They have a three-month backlog, I already checked. Then the request will be reviewed by DLME, DOM, and Wizengamot, taking another six to eight months. They will ask my input, and I’ll have to tell them I still have unresolved questions. Eventually, we’ll burn the body and send the remains to you in a box.”

Hermione felt the tingle of victory as Narcissa’s countenance frosted over and Andromeda blanched. “Or,” continued Hermione, “I could play the ‘brightest witch of her age’ card, telling the powers-that-be to release the body to her family in exchange for pertinent information related to this case.”

Andromeda placed a hand on her sister’s arm, “We’ll take the second option. Come over this evening, and we can talk.”

Narcissa swept from the room but paused at the door looking back at Hermione. “Perhaps you learned something during your time at Malfoy Manor. Now you're taking hostages. Bella would be proud you are such an apt pupil.”

After the witches left, Hermione transfigured the parchment into a passable likeness of Narcissa and shredded it into tiny pieces with multiple _diffindos_.

* * *

Narcissa threw down the picture of Bella’s legs and stomach. “If there is dark magic like a horcrux, why are the tattoos on her thighs and stomach moving? They're benign.” Hermione gave her a questioning look. “‘Brightest witch of her age’ and she knows nothing of the Old Ways.”

Andromeda tsked, “Why would she? It's Black Family magic.” She turned to Hermione. “The Blacks were water mages and fire witches that haled from Thrace, now Bulgaria. Our ancestors also practiced ink magic - tattoos - and we’ve retained the custom. They aren’t just for decoration. They’re badges marking us as nobility, and powerful, impervious amulets.”

She gestured to the snakes that wound around Bella’s upper thighs. ”Snakes are the Black family's totem. The bands above and below channel magic into the totem for protection and aid. Feed a bit of magic into them each day, and it's there when you need it.”

Narcissa smirked, “It’s not _just_ for protection - it's a thrill when your lover licks them.” Hermione blushed, she'd only had a few kisses, no lovers.

Andromeda rolled her eyes. ”No one wants to know about your sex life with Lucius. Anyway, the rising suns on her belly were for a safe pregnancy. I have one from when I carried Nymphadora.”

Hermione looked at the picture, finally able to decipher what she saw. “So she had two pregnancies, but no children?”

Andromeda looked to Narcissa to elaborate; she was gone before Bella's pregnancies. “The protection fails if the mother doesn’t want the child,” Narcissa said quietly. Rod beat Bella bloody after losing his heir the second time. Bella wasn’t the same when she recovered. She saved the toes from muggles she murdered in jam jars. Bella thought it was an excellent 'joke' to serve ‘toe jam’ to her at tea. From then on, Narcissa avoided Villa Lestrange.

Hermione handed the picture of the tree that covered Bella’s back to Narcissa. “A hanging tree? Are the crows her victims?”

Narcissa nodded, “A murder of crows. She thought she was _so_ clever. She and Rod had the same tattoo. When they came back from a revel, they would tear off each other’s clothes to add another bird, followed by loud sex on whatever horizontal surface they could find. I lost at least three tables to their _antics_.”

Hermione’s cheeks pinked, she did not want to think about Bellatrix Lestrange having sex.

Narcissa picked up the picture of the tattoo at Bella’s neck. “I don’t remember this one. It’s runic - can you translate it?” She handed it to Andromeda.

Andromeda squinted and turned the picture, “I’ve never seen runes like these.” She traced them with her finger. “It’s like they slither across her skin.”

Hermione shivered, she used undulate in her reports, but slither captured how each rune moved. “The closest I’ve come to translating the runes is a snippet from Harpo the Foul, supposedly a transliteration of parseltongue. He’s one of the few documented wizards who made a horcrux." Was it just a dark enchantment or a horcrux that was the question. Hermione rubbed her arm; it was aching again.

Andromeda pulled back her sleeve and looked at the scar, “Does it pain you?”

In her mind, Hermione shouted 'OF COURSE''; instead she said, “A bit.”

Narcissa tapped her wand against her lip. ”Bella wasn’t careful with that knife. There was a lot of blood.”

Andromeda let out a cackle like the witch she was. “Oh, don’t tell me that Bella slipped and cut herself, accidentally blood-bonding with a muggle-born? I might die of laughter!”

Hermione‘s eyes went wide, and Narcissa hissed. Andromeda was still laughing when she grabbed Hermione’s hand. She stopped and looked at Hermione’s thumb and forefinger. “Ink stains, just like Bella.” She turned to Narcissa, “Do you remember her diary?”

Narcissa's lips thinned. “The diary was a horcrux. We didn't know it at the time.”

Hermione bit her lip, “But the diary was destroyed. Harry stabbed it with a basilisk fang - all the ink bled out.”

The sisters exchanged a look. Andromeda stuttered like she was still reasoning out the puzzle, “A horcrux is a powerful dark object what if, it marked - stained - those people who used it. Like ink stains?”

Hermione thought about it, “If Harry was stained, then it was banished when he died. Ginny has been seeing a mind healer for years because of what happened to her. She has an annual ritual cleansing because of the Dark taint on her magic. If Bella had the same taint, Ginny did -”

Andromeda frowned, “Perhaps it carried over to you when she blood bonded. And now, she’s haunting you.”

Narcissa shook her head, “Not haunting, possessing.”

Andromeda stared at Hermione. “You don’t know any virgins, do you? Because undoing this will require a good old-fashioned virgin sacrifice.”

* * *

“We offer this witch to our Goddess Bendis.” Andromeda gave Hermione the wide piece of leather, “Bite down if you need to scream. I’d say this isn’t going to hurt, but I'd be lying.” She took out a knife and slashed, opening her own palm. Then Andromeda summoned ashes from the hearth. They collided with the blood and swirled into a shiny black sphere that floated just above her hand.

Magical tattoos hurt more than the mundane because both skin and magic were marked. This tattoo was benign, helpful magic, but it hurt as bad as the cruciatus. Hermione shuddered, thinking about how much a Dark Mark would hurt.

Andromeda bent over Hermione’s thigh and began chanting. Hermione screamed around the leather as a strip of skin around her thigh bubbled and raised like a boil. The sphere stretched into a spike and tapped pigment into the zigzag pattern, turning the raised surface a deep black. Above it, a small line wiggled into being and turned into a snake. Andromeda smiled but continued chanting and flicking her wand. She traced the second set of zig-zags to contain the snake, it circled her leg before settling and flicking its tongue.

Andromeda wiped her brow and smiled brightly. “Okay, now the other leg. You are doing so much better than Nymphadora did. She passed out before I finished the first leg.”

Hermione grinned. She and Andromeda had talked about Tonks and how much they missed her. They had hugged, and Hermione allowed herself just a moment to miss her mother. She rationed her sadness, lest it drown her like a wave.

* * *

They were standing in the field by Andromeda’s cottage. The first night of the new moon meant it was dark. A gust of wind made the circle of candles around the ritual space flicker, but they stayed lit. A long stone trough was filled with water, and Bellatrix’s body floated in it. If all went well, her remains would turn to water, and her spirit would be at rest.

Ironically, funerary rites for fire witches used water. Water mages were burned. When pressed by Hermione’s enthusiastic questioning, Andromeda hypothesized it was a way to re-balance what Magic lost - water extinguishing fire, fire boiling away water. Hermione thought it explained a lot about how the contents of a bucket defeated the Wicked Witch of the West. Green skin was indicative of dragon pox; perhaps L. Frank Baum knew more than he was letting on.

Narcissa led the rite, and she began chanting. The shadows cast by the candles lengthened her face; she looked majestic, ancient, and powerful. The air was filled with color as sparks of red, blue, green, and the yellow flew. Hermione heard bells ringing, and a spicy scent of black licorice hit her nose as the myrrh resin that had anointed the Magic warmed Bella's body and released.

The chanting climaxed, and the three women approached the trough. Andromeda, who had gone to the crone, poured sour wine into the water floating Bella. Narcissa, a mother, poured milk. Hermione added honey for the sweetness of youth. Then Hermione traced a pattern low on her belly and said, “Rive.” There was a bit of discomfort, not quite the tearing, searing pain she expected, but a twist and stretch like the first day of her cycle. She looked down and saw a stain spreading on the pure white shift she wore for the ritual.

But it wasn’t red. It was black.

“I hate your body.” Hermione spun, and she was confronted with a spectral Bella. “I can feel the mud in your blood.”

Hermione straightened her spine and gripped her wand. This was unexpected. Bella was supposed to have departed, not appear almost fully corporeal. “It’s my body, Bella, and you can’t have it.”

She hissed, “You. Don’t. Call. Me. That. You aren’t family, and you’re just a jumped-up little mudblood who doesn’t know her place. Do you even know what those runes around my neck mean? They give me the power to do this!”

With a rush, Bellatrix flew through Hermione. She struggled against it, but she felt like she was a garment that Bellatrix was putting on. Hermione clawed at her arms, her torso, her neck to get Bellatrix out, but she only left bloody gouges behind.

Then Bella spoke using Hermione’s voice, “Joke’s on you, mudblood.”

Hermione felt her magic unmooring as if she was hanging off a cliff by her fingers, and Bella was unhooking each one of them so she would fall to her doom.

Andromeda stepped forward wand raised. Hermione’s arm shot out, and she caught Andromeda’s wand. “Ah-ah-ah Meda. Finders Keepers. This body is mine now.”

Narcissa stopped chanting. Channeling ritual magic was demanding; Hermione and Andromeda had deferred to her. She’d felt the strange magic wash over her. She had expected the wild crackle of Bella’s magic, even welcomed it. If she had to trade the ‘brightest witch of her age’ to have Bella back, she would.

But it wasn’t her fire she felt. It was like thick, black ink that coated and concealed an echo of him - the Dark Lord.

“Andromeda help me.” Her sister found her feet and grasped Narcissa’s wand. They shouted together, “Miē Era Zēlta.” Hermione dropped to the ground. Bella’s shade shrieked and started to shrink as her sisters directed more Magic at her, repeating the phrase that translated to _deliver me to the ground_. Bella's body began to melt, losing form. The added water sloshed over the sides on to the ground. 

When it was done, the quiet was loud as a bell. Andromeda rushed to Hermione, embracing the young witch fretting over her. Hermione coughed and sat up, blinking at them.

Narcissa raised an eyebrow, “Well done surviving. Dying at someone else’s funeral is so common.”

* * *

Hermione was tucked into bed, and the sisters were drinking to dull the pain of the day. Narcissa sipped and stared into the fire. “I’ve been thinking about our motto.”

Andromeda raised an eyebrow, “Toujours pur? Or the original runes?”

“The runes. Do you remember when you told Bella that ‘Always Pure’ wasn’t the correct translation?”

“Yes, and father laughed at her ‘joke’ of making all the door handles bite me. I maintain the correct translation is ‘Remains Pure.’ ‘Always’ is bad French.”

“Is it ‘remains’ in the sense of the leftovers and residue, or to continue?” asked Narcissa. She tapped her wand against her lips. This was her scheming face. She and Bella were both so transparent. “Could you make sure Miss Granger stays for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Narcissa, what are you planning?”

Narcissa smiled like a kneazle who caught a snidget. “Draco will be out by Yule. I want to make sure our friendship is well established before I introduce him to his future wife.”

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favorite authors is AkashaTheKitty. Her [Silencio](https://archiveofourown.org/works/487914/chapters/850874) still haunts me. She wrote a brilliant short story, [Forgotten Sanity,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14380020) about Bellatrix Black and Tom Riddle's diary that I love so much I wish it was canon. Bellatrix warped by the diary horcrux is her idea, which I hope I took in a new direction. 
> 
> My Beta and I love OlivieBlake. It's impossible to single out one story of hers that is THE BEST. But if I were to dream the impossible dream, [The Letters of Lord Voldemort](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11298246/chapters/25278375#workskin) written with DrSallySparrow would be at the top of the list. Bellatrix lopping off toes and making terrible toe puns was their idea, when the opportunity presented itself in my story I wanted to pay homage.


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